


Surviving without hope leaves empty souls

by aroseandapen



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Original Work
Genre: Death Threats, Doxxing, Fan Killing Game (Dangan Ronpa), Gen, Homelessness, Medical issues, Mental Health Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, fuck the american health care system, or rather post that killing game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:48:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24436132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aroseandapen/pseuds/aroseandapen
Summary: Olivia Reid, former Ultimate Marionettist, forced Jaden Holland to kill someone else during the killing game they'd been forced into. Though it turned out be VR, she faced nasty messages and genuine death threats following their rescue. Once she finds a blurry picture of herself on the street she lived on posted to a message board, she realized that if she didn't leave, her parents could be in danger because of her.A fill for the Banned Works bingo: anti-american
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	Surviving without hope leaves empty souls

**Author's Note:**

> This work is mostly anti-capitalist (or rather, anti-low-minimum-wage and anti-america's-healthcare-system), tbh, but since so many "patriots" consider that a personal attack on the US to point out some terrible parts of the system, they'd consider it "anti-american" as well.

Olivia stared at the forum posts, but just as terrifying as they’d been the first day she’d seen them. Like so many messages she’d personally gotten since the killing game, from people who’d figured out her phone number, from those who found her social media accounts, the amount of vitriol and malicious intent behind the words chilled her to her core. The light from her monitor burned into her retinas; when she closed her eyes, she saw the image on screen still imprinted into them.

She should die, the messages said. Some even went so far as to say that they would gladly assault her if they came across her on the street. Searching for her address, the general area in which she lived. On the same board she looked at tonight, someone had uploaded a blurry shot of her walking down the street. Her street. They’d added below that that they assumed she lived in one of the nearby houses, and that was when Olivia for the first time realized, that one or both of her parents could be in danger because of her.

While a part of her thought she deserved the messages, and that she should’ve killed herself right out of the VR of the killing game, her parents didn’t. Since then they’d only supported her more, paying for therapy that further burdened them, continuing to pay for her expensive insulin without any of the money Olivia used to make from her shows. If they were hurt because of people targeting her, she really didn’t deserve to have ever been loved as much as her parents loved her.

It took a week to work up the courage after she’d first seen the picture among the posts. That night, though, she packed away as many of her things as she could, the store of insulin she had, and her savings. The insulin made her anxious. No matter what, the rest of it would expire by that time next month without refrigeration, and insulin wasn’t cheap.

As she stuffed the last she could into her bag, she caught sight of her first marionette--old and worn and most of the dirty black hair long since fallen off. She picked it up, fondness swelling in her chest. Her dad had made it for her, long ago, and her first shows on the playground heavily featured it. Even after she’d gotten scouted as the ultimate marionettist and no longer used it, it still held a tender place in her heart.

Her smile faded. She set it back down on her bed; if she brought it along, she would only miss her parents even more. Then she picked up her bag and, tiptoeing slowly through the house, snuck out into the night, fully intending to never return again.

\-----

Her time limit, imposed by the insulin she needed to live, quickly ran up to the end. She applied to dozens of jobs. Although she had no way of knowing for sure, her reputation from the nationally broadcasted killing game likely didn’t help her case. It took a week of sleeping on the streets to find a job at last, each night paranoid she would wake up with the entirety of her belongings missing, shivering and exposed to the elements, hiding from the police, and cleaning herself up in public restrooms to be as presentable as possible for an interview.

A part time job--not much, but it was something at least.

Unfortunately, that something, no matter how many hours she scrounged up from taking extra shifts and staying long past the end of her shift, she found herself not making much.

If she stretched herself thin, perhaps she could find a place to stay, assuming they would accept her lack of credit and inability to make three-times the rent. Unfortunately, that meant going without insulin, which she could barely afford as was. That, she couldn’t do. And so she would have to continue without a place of her own, or try and get into the already crowded shelters scattered around the city.

Olivia felt hopeless, more than she ever had before.

\-----

One afternoon she sat curled up against the shade of a building. The air around her burned, even out of direct sunlight, sweat rolling down the back of her neck. She’d gotten ice before leaving work, using it to keep her insulin cool even though the baggies were now filled with water that was gradually warming in the hot day.

A dry sob escaped her. What was even the point of it all? Necessary medical supplies that took almost the entirety of each paycheck, her job the only one that she could get with pay far too low to support her no matter how long or hard she worked, an entire system that left her with little options to crawl out of the situation she’d admittedly placed herself in. On top of it all, she grieved her relationship with her parents, whom she’d never see again.

She hadn’t seriously considered killing herself since a couple months following the killing game, but Olivia was fast approaching her limit now.

“Marie?”

The whispering voice made her gasp and flinch away, raising her hands to defend herself. Although she didn’t right away recognize it, few people referred to her by her former stage name. None of them would have any good will towards her now. Cautiously, she lifted her eyes, leaning over her beaten-up bag to protect it from being taken by the person she, assumed, had come to harass her.

Once she laid eyes on him, though, she recognized him right away. She choked on air--and unfortunately came out alive at the end of it.

Guilt and trauma buried years ago clawed its way back up into her throat, strangling her as she attempted to speak. “Jaden?”

Staring down at her, the young man looked conflicted. Jaden, the person she’d forced to kill another, and then was executed when Olivia should have been killed in his place. It’d been a dark, deeply grievous, furious time, in which Olivia had hoped Jaden would escape, and she and the rest of the class would die. Tears welled up in her eyes now, shame at what she’d done back then mixed with humiliation at her situation he found her in. She wanted the ground to open up and swallow her. She wanted to die on the spot.

“What are you...?” Jaden began to whisper, but he trailed off into an uncomfortable silence.

Apologies stuck in Olivia’s throat. They would be too little, too late she knew, but she wished she could say them to him anyway.

“Hey.” It wasn’t Jaden who spoke, but the boy next to him.

Olivia’s heart wrung itself out to recognize him as the one who’d terrified her back when they’d been rescued. She winced, tense and shaking. She couldn’t remember his name, but he’d left an impression on her back them, although despite her intimidation--two guys, one significantly taller than her, and her own body weak from struggling just to make the ends of the ever-shortening rope of her life meet.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out. She scrambled to her feet, but she stood too fast and her head spun dangerously as black spots encroached on her vision. Yet when her vision cleared, she was just as quick to scoop her bag up. “I’m going, I’m just--I’m just...”

Her head dipped down, growing faint for a second. She put her hand on the wall to steady herself, panting. The heat was getting to her.

“Wait,” the other boy spoke again.

Jaden gave him a quizzical look. “Kokichi...?”

The boy--Kokichi--barely glanced in Jaden’s direction. His eyes were fixed on Olivia, studying her with a hard look that left her feeling like her soul was exposed.

“We’re about to eat lunch, come with us,” Kokichi said. “I’ll buy for you, so you should come with.”

Jaden’s confused expression told Olivia that what he said about them being about to eat was a lie. Yet, because her stomach growled so fiercely, and because the hot day was slowly killing her, she couldn’t have said anything but ‘yes’ to that, though tears were in her eyes when she said.

“Ok... ok, thank you,” she said breathlessly, afraid that it was too good to be true.

She didn’t understand his motive. She couldn’t tell why he would help her, when she only got what she deserved. But she was grateful. Her gaze darted in Jaden’s direction as she followed them both, but although he seemed uncomfortable, he didn’t shoot hateful looks in her direction. She forced herself to relax as best she could. Kokichi had clearly cared a lot about Jaden back then, and she couldn’t imagine him purposefully doing something that would hurt him now.

Olivia resolved to apologize, the moment she could. She would grovel if necessary, anything to make it up to the one person back then she believed deserved to live more than any of them. _Especially_ her.


End file.
